Effective Conflict Resolution

Disagreement is a natural part of marriage. Speak softly and definitely forget the big stick.

Disagreements can be a very healthy vehicle to promote expansiveness of vision and personal growth. The real secret to a good and lasting marriage is not lack of conflict, but how conflict is resolved.
Here are more tips for calm and effective conflict resolution.

1. Don't generalize.

When disagreeing, it's very tempting to make statements such as:

"You always do that."
"You're never here when I need you."
"Why can't you ever help me?"

Such broad sweeping generalizations can be very damaging. No one is always wrong. No one always behaves negatively. And it obscures the issue at hand, putting the accused party on the defensive.

Just as with our children we want to avoid the destructive use of labels, so we do in marriage as well. And just as with our children we want to bolster self-esteem with a lot of praise before alluding to a potential area for improvement, so we do with our marriage partners also.

We wouldn't attack our children over a mistake they made. Don't we want to be equally sane with respect to our spouses? Don't we want them to know how precious they are to us?

Therefore, try to avoid generalizing. It will get your partner's back up before the conversation even begins.

If you have criticism to offer, try to precede it with a positive comment.

If you have a criticism, try to list the positive first: "You took out the garbage and did the shopping. That really saved me significant time and I'm very grateful. If next time you could buy fewer bags of potato chips and more fruit and vegetables, I'd appreciate it."

If you harness your creative powers, you can reframe many of your concerns in a positive light: "I like talking to you so much that I would really enjoy it if you would call me more often during the day."

2. Use a gentle tone of voice.

I think that the whole world would change for the better (speaking of generalizations) if everyone would learn to speak softly.

Your spouse, your children, your friends and colleagues, even animals respond much more positively to a request or complaint expressed in a soft, gentle manner. You could say the same thing loudly with much less effect and frequently create a hostile atmosphere.

Have you ever watched people attach each other verbally in public? It's embarrassing and humiliating for both the attacker and the victim. A calm, gentle approach protects the ego of the other person and allows him to hear the rebuke more objectively.

Loud personal attacks are embarrassing and humiliating for both the attacker and the victim.

We sometimes feel that in order to be heard we need to be loud, maybe we need to yell and scream. This is a common mistake.

If you speak quietly, you will force the listener to pay close attention. And if you speak calmly there is a much lesser chance of your discussion deteriorating into a brawl. Even if your spouse is a screamer, your gentle tones will stop him in his tracks and force him to calm down too. And it's a great example to set for your children.

Marla used to look for excuses to fight with Ted, her husband of 10 years. But Ted never met her in the middle. He was a perceptive fellow and he recognized that his wife's need for an emotional catharsis frequently precipitated her angry outbursts.

He responded in calm, soothing tones. Marla was forced to react in kind. She would walk away with a strong sense of being loved, and now she rents a very sad movie when she's in need of intense emotional expression.

3. Find the Positive in the Moment.

I call this: "Stop the old tape you are playing and find a new one."

Miriam Levi has taught and written on Effective Jewish Parenting. She gives a very powerful example. Frequently when things are going wrong, we tell ourselves, "I can't stand it! I can't stand it another minute!" Mrs. Levi has a terrific response to this detrimental message. "Of course you can stand it. Being boiled in a pot of hot oil is something you can't stand. But this you can stand."

And of course, she's right. You have to change the tape you're playing over and over again in your head. Instead of "I can't stand it," try "I think I can, I think I can," (my personal favorite from The Little Engine That Could) or another alternative.

Instead of "I can't stand it," try "I think I can, I think I can."

It's very helpful when you're in the middle of a rough spot in your marriage, and the door looks pretty tempting, to take a look inside yourself. What have you been telling yourself. Is it true or an exaggeration? Is there a more positive way you could put this? Does everyone else in the world really have a better husband/wife/mother-in-law? Could you deal with your frustration and affirm your marriage at the same time?

What we tell ourselves -- the tape we play -- is crucial to how we look at and handle each challenging situation.

About the Author

Emuna Braverman has a law degree from the University of Toronto and a Masters in in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University. She lives with her husband and nine children in Los Angeles where they both work for Aish HaTorah. When she isn''t writing for the Internet or taking care of her family, Emuna teaches classes on Judaism, organizes gourmet kosher cooking groups and hosts many Shabbos guests. She is the cofounder of www.gourmetkoshercooking.com.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 3

(3)
Adabahi ogah Richard,
February 10, 2016 7:07 PM

Your married book red very ok

Your book are wonderful

(2)
collins,
January 5, 2010 12:39 PM

love is like a bank account

in marriage circle,each partner should deposit an amount of love in the account daily so that there is enough monies(love) for each other.of course there are interests accumulated like forgiveness,intergrity and so forth and marriage last lifetime.

(1)
Felix Garise,
January 29, 2008 4:02 AM

Being calm, appreciative of the other person gives them confidence in their partner.

I really appreciate what this page taught me. I read this page at the right time. I was about to drive my wife away from me by being a fault finder. I think she had considered having an affair since I haven't been there for her.

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Since honey is produced by bees, and bees are not a kosher species, how can honey be kosher?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The Talmud (Bechoros 7b) asks your very question! The Talmud bases this question on the principle that “whatever comes from a non-kosher species is non-kosher, and that which comes from something kosher is kosher.”

So why is bee-honey kosher? Because even though bees bring the nectar into their bodies, the resultant honey is not a 'product' of their bodies. It is stored and broken down in their bodies, but not produced there. (see Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 81:8)

By the way, the Torah (in several places such as Exodus 13:5) praises the Land of Israel as "flowing with milk and honey." But it may surprise you to know that the honey mentioned in the verse is actually referring to date and fig honey (see Rashi there)!

In 1809, a group of 70 disciples of the great Lithuanian sage the Vilna Gaon, arrived in Israel, after traveling via Turkey by horse and wagon. The Vilna Gaon set out for the Holy Land in 1783, but for unknown reasons did not attain his goal. However he inspired his disciples to make the move, and they became pioneers of modern settlement in Israel. (A large contingent of chassidic Jews arrived in Tzfat around the same time.) The leader of the 1809 group, Rabbi Israel of Shklov, settled in Tzfat, and six years later moved to Jerusalem where he founded the modern Ashkenazic community. The early years were fraught with Arab attacks, earthquakes, and a cholera epidemic. Rabbi Israel authored, Pe'at Hashulchan, a digest of the Jewish agricultural laws relating to the Land of Israel. (He had to rewrite the book after the first manuscript was destroyed in a fire.) The location of his grave remained unknown until it was discovered in Tiberias, 125 years after his death. Today, the descendants of that original group are amongst the most prominent families in Jerusalem.

When you experience joy, you feel good because your magnificent brain produces hormones called endorphins. These self-produced chemicals give you happy and joyful feelings.

Research on these biochemicals has proven that the brain-produced hormones enter your blood stream even if you just act joyful, not only when you really are happy. Although the joyful experience is totally imaginary and you know that it didn’t actually happen, when you speak and act as if that imaginary experience did happen, you get a dose of endorphins.

These chemicals are naturally produced by your brain. They are totally free and entirely healthy.

Many people find that this knowledge inspires them to create more joyful moments. It’s not just an abstract idea, but a physical reality.

Occasionally, when I walk into an office, the receptionist greets me rudely. Granted, I came to see someone else, and a receptionist's disposition is immaterial to me. Yet, an unpleasant reception may cast a pall.

A smile costs nothing. Greeting someone with a smile even when one does not feel like smiling is not duplicity. It is simply providing a pleasant atmosphere, such as we might do with flowers or attractive pictures.

As a rule, "How are you?" is not a question to which we expect an answer. However, when someone with whom I have some kind of relationship poses this question, I may respond, "Not all that great. Would you like to listen?" We may then spend a few minutes, in which I unburden myself and invariably begin to feel better. This favor is usually reciprocated, and we are both thus beneficiaries of free psychotherapy.

This, too, complies with the Talmudic requirement to greet a person in a pleasant manner. An exchange of feelings that can alleviate someone's emotional stress is even more pleasant than an exchange of smiles.

It takes so little effort to be a real mentsch.

Today I shall...

try to greet everyone in a pleasant manner, and where appropriate offer a listening ear.

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